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Hey. So... it's been a while. Sorry, friends! I'm hope you're doing as okay as you can be in this time. There's so much that's gone on with me, and I honestly don't have the emotions to explain it all, so I'm just going to make a big list here. If you just want to find out about my writing, skip to the very last item on the list. :-)
0. My computer finally died (after a big power surge/outage) and I only just got Semagic up and running on my new laptop, so I'm back!
1. About 3 weeks ago, I lost my job because my workplace was struggling financially due to COVID-19. I'd been there 14 years, and I was let go with absolutely no notice in an extremely disrespectful way. I've been dealing with both the worry of suddenly not being able to pay my mortgage and having no healthcare and also the pure rage that came from being dismissed for doing nothing wrong (and, in fact, doing 3 different people's jobs on top of my own). I know it is not my fault, but self-doubt took hold. I'm feeling a little better now (there are whole days now where I make it through without sobbing!). And I have the BEST friends and family being outraged on my behalf and checking in to make sure I don't die and cheering me up when I need it but also giving me space when I need it. I've heard from a dozen former coworkers equally outraged that I was let go. And it makes me feel good that people who know my skills and commitment are supporting me and outraged, too.
2. I attended CON.TXT online and was a Discord volunteer for two scheduled shifts (though I read every discord message during the event as a backup). It was so freakin' amazing to hang out with hundreds of slash fans for two days on Discord and Zoom. It felt just like it does at the cons. We had a morning welcome, three tracks of programming, and an evening vid show with (I think) 11 premieres. I had hoped for a place I might find someone else who watches/thinks kinky thoughts about Taskmaster, and I ended up finding a bunch and getting to talk Taskmaster and related British shows for more than an hour! It was heavenly. And then I got into a conversation with lots of people about Square One/Mathnet and Ghostwriter, which both have extremely big pieces of my fandom heart. Some of the panels I attended included Star Wars, Poly, Kink 301 (consent & negotiation), AO3 search techniques, and Hurt/Comfort. Man, I love this con. I now have 5 and a half pages of recs to read/watch, though LOL. I've already registered for ConFabulation in November! Online slash cons are my new favorite. Here's the vid list, if you want to enjoy it: http://con-txt.net/index.php/vid-show/ And if slash is your thing, you should totally join me at ConFab in November! It's online and free and so much fandom fun!
3. Hockey's back! I am excited, but also super nervous. I want them all super safe inside their awesome hockey bubble. It's the thing of Hockey RPF, I swear. It's so great watching them so happy to be back on the ice. I just want them to be safe. Safe safe safe and not sick or dead. Thinking lots of good thoughts.
4. I'm still on my own. Haven't had any phycial contact with friends or family since early March. I did get to be in the backseat of the van while my dad drove me to the garage to get my car inspected, but the windows were open and we were both wearing masks. That's the closest I've been. I'm still obsessively cleaning and disinfecting everything every Sunday and still disinfecting or quarantining everything that comes into my house. I have absolutely no interest in reentry and things opening up. I do not trust people in the outside world. "I am the one thing in life I can control" is still my motto (and now I have a medal with that on it as a souvineer of this time). I'm also still freaking pissed off at anyone walking the wrong way in the grocery store and judge people if they wear their masks wrong or get too close to me.
5. I finished 20 LGBTQ+ books in June for Pride month, nearly all of them by or about people of color. (And I had 3 more in progress I had yet to finish at the end of the month). I have done a Harry Potter Hogsmeade reading challenge and just finished a bear-themed one called BookHiBearNation today. I'm at 117 books for the year and on a streak of 7 days with a book finished each day.
6. The Old Guard. Apart from Taskmaster, The Old Guard is my new fandom love. I attended an online watch party the day after CON.TXT with some of the attendees, so we could squee about weapon compentancy and canon gays together. I also read the first graphic novel TPB that day for more backstory. Now I want ALL the Highlander/The Old Guard crossovers. OH! That's another great discussion from CON.TXT! We spent so much time talking about Highlander and this new immortal fandom. And now I really want Andy/Amanda fic. Stat.
7. Watch Parties are a thing. I hosted one in April for my birthday. I am in a Ham4Ham watch party right now on YouTube. I even attended one for Bear City 2 with the creators, fans, and some of the cast (I didn't say anything in that one, because I'm nervous about bears judging me, but I loved rewatching the movie with them).
8. Workouts are going well. I haven't skipped a day since my last dental surgery in May. That's more than 70 days straight. I'm hoping to get to at least 100. I've uppped my daily minute requirement to 20 and then upped it again to 25 (though most days I put in 30 minutes or more, I almost never go over 45).
9. I've started updating my fandom blog again: http://thefangirlproject.com (why does everything I do have to be so gendered, past!me?).
10. I have developed an unhealthy addiction to Marvel Puzzle Quest and Harry Potter Puzzles & Spells, both match-3 games on my phone. I just set up Habitica online, and so far it's helping me curb my temptation to play them. There were a couple days where I think I played those for like, like, 6 hours. Really not good. But now I made playing them a reward, so it costs me fake money that I could be using to feed my fake bear or outfit my avatar with a fake kickass axe. So far, that's helping. It's also helping me stay busy giving my days structure, which I need right now as I'm not working.
11. WRITING! Okay, this is probably what you're here for, not me drooling over kinky Greg/Alex fic.
PS- If anyone can find me The Real World Philadelphia online, I will be forever grateful. I have tried both legal and illegal sites, and I have found nothing. I really want to see that season. Just sayin'.
0. My computer finally died (after a big power surge/outage) and I only just got Semagic up and running on my new laptop, so I'm back!
1. About 3 weeks ago, I lost my job because my workplace was struggling financially due to COVID-19. I'd been there 14 years, and I was let go with absolutely no notice in an extremely disrespectful way. I've been dealing with both the worry of suddenly not being able to pay my mortgage and having no healthcare and also the pure rage that came from being dismissed for doing nothing wrong (and, in fact, doing 3 different people's jobs on top of my own). I know it is not my fault, but self-doubt took hold. I'm feeling a little better now (there are whole days now where I make it through without sobbing!). And I have the BEST friends and family being outraged on my behalf and checking in to make sure I don't die and cheering me up when I need it but also giving me space when I need it. I've heard from a dozen former coworkers equally outraged that I was let go. And it makes me feel good that people who know my skills and commitment are supporting me and outraged, too.
2. I attended CON.TXT online and was a Discord volunteer for two scheduled shifts (though I read every discord message during the event as a backup). It was so freakin' amazing to hang out with hundreds of slash fans for two days on Discord and Zoom. It felt just like it does at the cons. We had a morning welcome, three tracks of programming, and an evening vid show with (I think) 11 premieres. I had hoped for a place I might find someone else who watches/thinks kinky thoughts about Taskmaster, and I ended up finding a bunch and getting to talk Taskmaster and related British shows for more than an hour! It was heavenly. And then I got into a conversation with lots of people about Square One/Mathnet and Ghostwriter, which both have extremely big pieces of my fandom heart. Some of the panels I attended included Star Wars, Poly, Kink 301 (consent & negotiation), AO3 search techniques, and Hurt/Comfort. Man, I love this con. I now have 5 and a half pages of recs to read/watch, though LOL. I've already registered for ConFabulation in November! Online slash cons are my new favorite. Here's the vid list, if you want to enjoy it: http://con-txt.net/index.php/vid-show/ And if slash is your thing, you should totally join me at ConFab in November! It's online and free and so much fandom fun!
3. Hockey's back! I am excited, but also super nervous. I want them all super safe inside their awesome hockey bubble. It's the thing of Hockey RPF, I swear. It's so great watching them so happy to be back on the ice. I just want them to be safe. Safe safe safe and not sick or dead. Thinking lots of good thoughts.
4. I'm still on my own. Haven't had any phycial contact with friends or family since early March. I did get to be in the backseat of the van while my dad drove me to the garage to get my car inspected, but the windows were open and we were both wearing masks. That's the closest I've been. I'm still obsessively cleaning and disinfecting everything every Sunday and still disinfecting or quarantining everything that comes into my house. I have absolutely no interest in reentry and things opening up. I do not trust people in the outside world. "I am the one thing in life I can control" is still my motto (and now I have a medal with that on it as a souvineer of this time). I'm also still freaking pissed off at anyone walking the wrong way in the grocery store and judge people if they wear their masks wrong or get too close to me.
5. I finished 20 LGBTQ+ books in June for Pride month, nearly all of them by or about people of color. (And I had 3 more in progress I had yet to finish at the end of the month). I have done a Harry Potter Hogsmeade reading challenge and just finished a bear-themed one called BookHiBearNation today. I'm at 117 books for the year and on a streak of 7 days with a book finished each day.
6. The Old Guard. Apart from Taskmaster, The Old Guard is my new fandom love. I attended an online watch party the day after CON.TXT with some of the attendees, so we could squee about weapon compentancy and canon gays together. I also read the first graphic novel TPB that day for more backstory. Now I want ALL the Highlander/The Old Guard crossovers. OH! That's another great discussion from CON.TXT! We spent so much time talking about Highlander and this new immortal fandom. And now I really want Andy/Amanda fic. Stat.
7. Watch Parties are a thing. I hosted one in April for my birthday. I am in a Ham4Ham watch party right now on YouTube. I even attended one for Bear City 2 with the creators, fans, and some of the cast (I didn't say anything in that one, because I'm nervous about bears judging me, but I loved rewatching the movie with them).
8. Workouts are going well. I haven't skipped a day since my last dental surgery in May. That's more than 70 days straight. I'm hoping to get to at least 100. I've uppped my daily minute requirement to 20 and then upped it again to 25 (though most days I put in 30 minutes or more, I almost never go over 45).
9. I've started updating my fandom blog again: http://thefangirlproject.com (why does everything I do have to be so gendered, past!me?).
10. I have developed an unhealthy addiction to Marvel Puzzle Quest and Harry Potter Puzzles & Spells, both match-3 games on my phone. I just set up Habitica online, and so far it's helping me curb my temptation to play them. There were a couple days where I think I played those for like, like, 6 hours. Really not good. But now I made playing them a reward, so it costs me fake money that I could be using to feed my fake bear or outfit my avatar with a fake kickass axe. So far, that's helping. It's also helping me stay busy giving my days structure, which I need right now as I'm not working.
11. WRITING! Okay, this is probably what you're here for, not me drooling over kinky Greg/Alex fic.
- Oh, speaking of which, I'm writing a series of kink Greg/Alex fics. Some are going better than others, and I haven't posted them yet.
- I also wrote a non-sneezefic Stucky fic and a non-sneezefic Ghostwriter story both on AO3. I was THRILLED to find that there were 13 Ghostwriter fics on AO3 (though two are the same) and immediately had to write a future fic for them at Hector's wedding. So now there are 14 GW fics on AO3.
- I'm working on a Troy story set during the pandemic. I am nearly done with it.
- I still only have 2 of the 4 giftfics finished. But I'm going to try to finish that up as soon as I can. My deepest apologies to those of you still waiting.
- For July Camp NaNoWriMo I used a little booklet I found during quarancleaning in May and wrote 30 stories (and an introduction) with Strokes characters going through the pandemic together or apart. I'm really proud of some of them and want to make them into a collection. However, they're set NOW, and there's a LOT that happens before this in their timeline. So I think I need to finish/post a couple more stories before I can post the quarantine collection. There's sneezing in one of them because Coyote's allergies just had to make an appearance.
PS- If anyone can find me The Real World Philadelphia online, I will be forever grateful. I have tried both legal and illegal sites, and I have found nothing. I really want to see that season. Just sayin'.
